The crypto industry is moving towards banning mainland China following a new diktat from PBOC that wants to prohibit foreign entities from providing crypto services to Chinese users within China.
So far, the BitMart exchange with offices in Singapore, Seoul, New York and Hong Kong, stated that it will withdraw services to users authenticated as in Mainland China with the transition expected to complete by November 30th 2021.
The Singapore headquarted BiKi Exchange, with about $400 million in trading volumes, said it has suspended registrations from users in Mainland China and will stop servicing those already in the platform from 30th November.
Ethereum’s SparkPool has also suspended such registrations, but as it mainly serves Chinese miners, it has announced it is closing entirely on September 30th.
The considerable hash there, 20% of ethereum’s network, has to move before then to another pool or to a new pool that they may well create.
Alibaba is to stop listing asics, something that may well increase incentives further for western design and development of crypto asics.
Some crypto companies have already received funding, but this is cutting edge manufacturing so it may take time.
The usual duo of OKEx and Huobi have also banned China, but that’s maybe just to unban it in a couple of months in the same style of the now four years dance.
Users themselves are escaping the ban by ditching WeChat. They are headed to Pavel Durov’s Telegram. We nominated him once as a candidate for Satoshi Nakamoto.
This guy goes from country to country every six months, with his location usually unknown. His views on crypto are also unknown, but unlike many other social platforms, Telegram has stayed out so far of any censorship controversy.
There are centralized and OTC markets operating in China. So they say. They’re taking it like cryptonians in the west: same old story of the yearly PBOC ban on bitcoin.
There are also many centralized and OTC markets outside China. Brian Armstrong of Coinbase maybe well comply you’d think, earning himself the title of the wimp boy of the revolution if he does, but maybe not.
If old fools in China think they can e-cny compete, then maybe old fools in America can also think they should try and kind of hamper that, by in this case ordering Coinbase to keep the China market open.
Just as these old grandpas, and it is still mainly the same ones, dropped Radio Free Europe on oppressed Soviets, so too maybe they think they should drop bitcoin on the oppressed one party state.
Not that their assistance is necessarily needed, but this is bitcoin where anyone can do and say whatever they want on behalf of it, including old grandpas.
Plenty leaders of centralized exchanges however will probably not comply, let alone in OTC markets. Because if they are not based in China, then Chinese law obviously does not apply, simples.
Imagine for example if CCP demanded that western companies or media censors their content when displayed to visiting users from China based on IP. Who would comply?
This is no different because Chinese law stops at China’s borders as Chinese visitors do not export Chinese law.
A lot of things prohibited in China are perfectly permissible in Europe. The facilitation of crypto trade being one of them.
Just as a Chinese visitor is perfectly free to go to Amsterdam’s more permissive cafes and enjoy the extended liberties, so too a Chinese visitor from China should be perfectly free to go to any European based exchange or American and engage in more permissive liberties.
Anything else is but a cowering of western minds and a weakness of character in willingly subjugating themselves to one party rule despite not being anywhere within that one party jurisdiction.
That’s especially as there has been no law by China’s People Assembly on cryptos. Thus an unconstitutional central bank diktat that claims to be law when only parliament can make law, can not possibly be recognized even by people within China, let alone outside it where the Indian Supreme Court has set the precedent that such diktat ‘law’ or policy is indeed unconstitutional.
So some may ban China if they want to, but the door should stay open to the Chinese people, and a CCP or PBOC jurisdiction should not in any way be recognized outside of China’s borders because other jurisdictions apply.
